Treasury Secretary has done to try and help end the Credit Crisis because of its huge price tag—$850 billion. United States Secretary of the Treasury to spend up to US$850 billion to purchase distressed assets, especially mortgage-backed securities, from the nation's banks.

But what has the Federal Reserve (The Fed) been doing to help end/prevent the Credit Crisis? how much does it actually equal to?

the Fed has been working overtime creating new lending facilities and injecting money into the financial system to try and stem the effects of the Credit Crisis. Take a look at the following actions the Fed has taken—without needing any approval from Congress:

- Term Auction Facility (TAF) : The Term Auction Facility (TAF) was the first new facility—December 12, 2007—the Fed created to try and inject more money into the system. By this point, banks had stopped lending to each other because they were afraid of other banks defaulting on their loans. Banks were also unwilling to go to the Fed's Discount Window to borrow funds because borrowing money from the Discount Window is often seen as a sign of weakness and financial instability—the last thing a bank wants to acknowledge in the middle of a credit crisis. To combat these problems, the Fed allows banks to annonymously borrow money from the TAF.

- Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) : primary dealers—those dealers with whom the Fed deals directly in its open market operations—had nowhere to go to gain access to the capital they needed to remain solvent. To combat this problem, the Fed established the TSLF to allow primary dealers to give their troubled assets to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in exchange for more liquid Treasury Securities.

- Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF) : When the Fed saw that the TSLF was not giving primary dealers access to enough capital, it decided to allow primary dealers to borrow directly from the Fed—like a bank would borrow from the discount window. Previously, primary dealers were not allowed to borrow directly from the Fed.

- Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF): the Fed established the CPFF to buy short-term commercial paper from major corporations. Major corporations use short-term debt that allows them to cover payroll, accounts payable and other liabilities in the short term.

- Swap Lines : the Fed has temporarily removed all limits on its swap lines with major central banks in Europe—the Bank of England (BOE), the European Central Bank (ECB), the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and others—and in other parts of the world. This means these central banks have access to as many U.S. dollars as they need, which will allow them to inject these U.S. dollars into their own economies to try and loosen the credit markets.

list of primary dealers:

The following companies are the current primary dealers with whom the Fed deals directly: